"Well, I rolled him over, took a drink, and then I brought the mare alongside, helped him in and drove him home to my house. He was a most delightful gentleman. Didn't leave my place until four o'clock in the mornin'. He lives about fifteen miles below me. He told me his name was Toffington. Do you happen to know him, Talbot?" said Gunning, turning to Billy.
"Toffington, Toffington," said Billy, dropping his eye-glasses with a movement of his eyebrows. He had listened to the story without the slightest comment. "No, Tom, unless he is one of those upper county men. There was a fellow I met in London last year—" (Billy pronounced it "larst yarh," to Oliver's infinite amusement) "with some such name as that. He and I went over to Kew Gardens with the Duke of—."
Gunning instantly turned around with an impatient gesture—nobody ever listened to one of Billy's London stories, they being the never-ending jokes around Kennedy Square—faced the General again, much to Oliver's regret, who would have loved above all things to hear Billy descant on his English experiences.
"Do you, General, know anybody named Toffington?" asked Tom.
"No, Gunning—but here comes Clayton, he knows everybody in the State that is worth knowing. What you have told me is most extraordinary—most extraordinary, Gunning. It only goes to show how necessary it is for every man to be prepared for emergencies of this kind. You should never go unarmed, sir. You had a very narrow escape—a very narrow escape, Gunning. Here, Clayton—come over here."
Oliver pulled his face into long lines. The picture of Gunning taking a drink with a man who a moment before had tried to blow the top of his head off, and the serious way in which the coterie about the table regarded the incident, so excited the boy's risibles that he would have laughed outright had not his eye rested on the Colonel walking toward him.
The Colonel, evidently, did not hear McTavish's call. His mind was occupied with something much more important. He had been finishing a game of whist upstairs, and the mahogany-colored Cerberus had not dared to disturb him until the hand was played out. The fact that young Oliver Horn had called to see him at such an hour and in such a place had greatly disturbed him. He felt sure that something out of the ordinary had happened.
"My dear boy," he cried, as Oliver rose to meet him, "I have this instant heard you were here, or I never should have kept you waiting a moment. Nothing serious—nothing at home?"
"Oh, no, Colonel. Only a word from mother, sir. I missed you at the bank and Mr. Stiger thought that I might better come here," and he delivered his mother's message in a low voice and resumed his seat again.
The Colonel, now that his mind was at rest, dropped into a chair, stroked his goatee with his thumb and forefinger, and ran over in his mind the sum of his engagements.
"Tell your dear mother," he said, "that I will do myself the honor of calling upon her on my way home late this afternoon. Nothing will give me greater pleasure. Now stay awhile with me and let me order something for you, my boy," and he beckoned to one of the brown-coated servants who had entered the room with a fresh tray for the Gunning table.
"No, thank you, Colonel; I ought not to stop," Oliver replied, in an apologetic way, as he rose from his seat. "I really ought to go back and tell mother," and with a grasp of Clayton's hand and a bow to one or two men in the room who were watching his movements—the Colonel following him to the outer door—Oliver took himself off, as was the duty of one so young and so entirely out of place among a collection of men all so knowing and distinguished.
In full justice to the Chesapeake Club the scribe must admit that such light-weights as Billy Talbot, Torn Gunning, and Carter Thorn did not fairly represent the standing of the organization. Many of the most cultivated and enlightened men about Kennedy Square and the neighboring country enjoyed its privileges; among them not only such men as Richard Horn, Nathan Gill, the Chief-Justice of the State, and those members of the State Legislature whose birth was above reproach, but most of the sporting gentry of the county, as well as many of the more wealthy planters who lived on the Bay and whose houses were opened to their fellow-members when the ducks were flying.
Each man's lineage, occupation, and opinions on the leading topics of the time were as well known to the club as to the man himself. Any new-corner presenting himself for membership was always subjected to the severest scrutiny, and had to be favorably passed upon by a large majority of the committee before a sufficient number of votes could be secured for his election.
The only outsider elected for years had been Amos Cobb, of Vermont, the abolitionist, as he was generally called, who invariably wore black broad-cloth and whose clean-shaven face—a marked contrast to the others—with its restless black eyes, strong nose, and firm mouth, was as sharp and hard as the rocks of his native State. His election to full membership of the Chesapeake Club was not due to his wealth and commercial standing—neither of these would have availed him—but to the fact that he had married a daughter of Judge Wharton of Wharton Hall, and had thus, by reason of his alliance with one of the first families of the State, been admitted to all the social privileges of Kennedy Square. This exception in his favor, however, had never crippled Cobb's independence nor stifled his fearlessness in expressing his views on any one of the leading topics of the day. The Vermonter had worked with his hands when a boy on his father's farm, and believed in the dignity of labor and the blessings of self-support. He believed, too, in the freedom of all men, black and white, and looked upon slavery as a crime. He expressed these sentiments openly and unreservedly, and declared that no matter how long he might live South he would never cease to raise his voice against a system which allowed a man—as he put it—"to sit down in the shade and fan himself to sleep while a lot of niggers whose bodies he owned were sweating in a corn-field to help feed and clothe him."
These sentiments, it must be said, did not add to his popularity, although the time had not yet arrived when he would have been thrown into the street for uttering them.
Nathan Gill was a daily visitor. He was just mounting the club steps, his long pen-wiper cloak about his shoulders, as Oliver, after his interview with Colonel Clayton, passed down the street on his way back to his mother. Nathan shook hands with the Colonel, and the two entered the main room, and seated themselves at one of the tables.
Billy Talbot, who had moved to the window, and who had been watching Oliver until he disappeared around the corner, dropped his eye-glass with that peculiar twitch of the upper lip which no one could have imitated, and crossed the room to where Nathan and Colonel Clayton had taken their seats. Waggles, the scrap of a Skye terrier, who was never three feet from Billy's heels, instantly crossed with him. After Billy had anchored himself and had assumed his customary position, with his feet slightly apart, Waggles, as was his habit, slid in and sat down on his haunches between his master's gaiters. There he lifted his fluffy head and gazed about him. The skill with which Mr. Talbot managed his dog was only equalled by the dexterity with which he managed his eye-glass; he never inadvertently stepped on the one nor unconsciously let slip the other. This caused Mr. Talbot considerable mental strain, but as it was all to which he ever subjected himself he stood the test bravely.
"Who is that young man, Colonel" Billy began, as he bent his head to be sure that Waggles was in position. He had been abroad while Oliver was growing up, and so did not recognize him.
"That's Richard Horn's son," the Colonel said, without raising his eyes from the paper. The Colonel never took Billy seriously.
"And a fine young fellow he is," broke in Nathan, straightening himself proudly.
"Hope he don't take after his father, Gill. By the way, what's that old wisionary doing now?" drawled Billy, throwing back the lapels of his coat, and slapping his checked trousers with his cane. "Larst time you talked to me about him he had some machine with w'eels and horse-shoe magnets, didn't he? He hasn't been in here for some time, so I know he's at work on some tomfoolery or other. Amazing, isn't it, that a man of his blood, with a cellar of the best Madeiwa in the State, should waste his time on such things. Egad! I cawn't understand it." Some of Billy's expressions, as well as his accent, came in with his clothes. "Now, if I had that Madeiwa, do you know what I'd do with it? I'd—"
"Perfectly, Billy," cried a man at the next table, who was bending over a game of chess. "You'd drink it up in a week." Talbot had never been known by any other name than Billy, and never would be as long as he lived.
When the laugh had subsided, Nathan, whose cheeks were still burning at the slighting way in which Billy Talbot had spoken of Richard, and who had sat hunched up in his chair combing the white hair farther over his ears with his long, spare fingers, a habit with him when he was in deep thought, lifted his head and remarked, quietly, addressing the room rather than Talbot:
"Richard's mind is not on his cellar; he's got something to think of besides Madeira and cards and dogs." And he looked toward Waggles. "You will all, one day, be proud to say that he lived in our town. Richard is a genius, one of the most remarkable men of the day, and everybody outside of this place knows it; you will be compelled to admit it yet. I left him only half an hour ago, and he is just perfecting a motor, gentlemen, which will—"
"Does it go yet, Nathan?" interrupted Cobb, who was filling a glass from a decanter which a brown-coated darky had brought him. Cobb's wife was Nathan's cousin, and, therefore, he had a right to be familiar. "I went to see his machine the other day, but I couldn't make anything out of it. Horn is a little touched here, isn't he?" and he tapped his forehead and smiled knowingly.
"No, Amos, the motor was not running when I left the shop," answered Nathan, dryly and with some dignity, "but it will be, he assured me, perhaps by to-morrow." He could fight Billy Talbot, but he never crossed swords with Cobb, never in late years. Cobb was the one man in all the world, he once told Richard, with whom he had nothing in common.
"Oh, to-morrow?" And Cobb whistled as he put down the decanter and picked up the day's paper. It was one of Cobb's jokes—this "to-morrow" of his neighbors. "What was a Northern man's to-day was always a Southern man's to-morrow," he would say. "I hope this young man of whom you speak so highly is not walking in the footsteps of this genius of a father? He looks to me like a young fellow that had some stuff in him if anybody would bring it out."
The half-concealed sneer in Cobb's voice grated also on old Judge Bowman, who threw down his book and looked up over his bowed spectacles. He was a testy old fellow, with a Burgundy face and shaggy white hair, a chin and nose that met together like a parrot's, and an eye like a hawk. It was one of his principles to permit none of his intimates to speak ill of his friends in his hearing. Criticisms, therefore, by an outsider like Cobb were especially obnoxious to him.
"Richard Horn's head is all right, Mr. Cobb, and so is his heart," he exclaimed in an indignant tone. "As for his genius, sir—Gill is within the mark. He IS one of the remarkable men of our day. You are quite right, too, about his young son, who has just left here. He has all the qualities that go to make a gentleman, and many of those which will make a jurist. He is now studying law with my associate, Judge Ellicott—a profession ennobled by his ancestors, sir, and one, for which what you call his 'stuff,' but which we, sir, call his 'blood,' especially fits him. You Northern men, I know, don't believe in blood. We do down here. This young man comes of a line of ancestors that have reflected great credit on our State for more than a hundred years, and he is bound to make his mark. His grandfather on his mother's side was our Chief Justice in 1810, and his great-grandfather was—"
"That's just what's the matter with most of you Southerners, Judge," interrupted Cobb, his black eyes snapping. "You think more of blood than you do of brains. We rate a man on Northern soil by what he does himself, not what a bundle of bones in some family burying-ground did for him before he was born. Don't you agree with me, Clayton?"
"I can't say I do, Cobb," replied the Colonel, slowly, stirring his toddy. "I never set foot on your soil but once, and so am unfamiliar with your ways." He never liked Cobb. "He's so cursedly practical, and so proud of it, too," he would often say; "and if you will pardon me, sir—a trifle underbred."
"When was that?" asked Cobb, looking over the top of his paper.
"That was some years ago, when I chased a wounded canvas-back across the Susquehanna River, and had to go ashore to get him; and I want to tell you, sir, that what you call 'your soil' was damned disagreeable muck. I had to change my boots when I got back to my home, and I've never worn them since." And the Colonel crushed the sugar in his glass with his spoon as savagely as if each lump were the head of an enemy, and raised the mixture to his mouth.
Amos's thin lips curled. The high and lofty airs of these patricians always exasperated him. The shout of laughter that followed the Colonel's reply brought the color to his cheeks.
"Chased him like a runaway nigger, I suppose, Clayton, didn't you? and wrung his neck when you got him—" retorted Amos, biting his lips.
"Of course, like I would any other piece of my property that tried to get away, or as I would wring the neck of any man who would help him—" And the Colonel looked meaningly at the Vermonter and drained his glass with a gulp. Then smothering his anger, he moved away to the window, where he watched Mr. Talbot, who had just left the club and who at the moment was standing on the corner making his daily afternoon inspection of the two connecting streets; an occupation which Billy varied by saluting each new-corner with a slap of his cane on his checker-board trousers and a stentorian "Bah Jove!" Waggles meanwhile squatting pensively between his gaiters.
When an hour later the Colonel presented himself at the Horn mansion, no trace of this encounter with Cobb was in his face nor in his manner. Men did not air their grievances in their own nor anyone's else home around Kennedy Square.
Mrs. Horn met him with her hand extended. She had been watching for Oliver's return with a degree of impatience rarely seen in her. She had hoped that the Colonel would have called upon her before he went to his office, and could not understand his delay until Oliver had given his account of the morning mishaps. She was too anxious now to chide him. It was but another indication of his temperament, she thought—a fault to be corrected with the others that threatened his success in life.
Holding fast to the Colonel's hand she drew him to one of the old haircloth sofas and told him the whole story.
"Do not give the mortgage a thought, my dear Sallie," the Colonel said, In his kindest manner, when she had finished speaking, laying his hand on her wrist. "My only regret is that it should have caused you a moment's uneasiness. I know that our bank has lately been in need of a large sum of money, and this loan, no doubt, was called in by the board. But it will be all right—if not I will provide for it myself."
"No—I do not want that, and Richard, if he knew, would not be willing either. Tell me, please, how this money is loaned," and she turned and looked earnestly into his face. "What papers are passed, and who signs them? I have never had anything to do with such matters, and you must explain it all clearly."
"A note signed by Richard and made payable on a certain date was given to the bank, and the mortgage was deposited as security."
"And if the note is not paid?"
"Then the property covered by the mortgage is sold, and the bank deducts its loan—any balance, of course, is paid over to Richard."
"And when the sale is put off—what is done then?"
"A new note is given," and here the Colonel stopped as if in doubt, "and sometimes a second name is placed on the note increasing the security. But, Sallie, dear, do not let this part of it ever again cross your mind. I will attend to it should it become necessary. It is not often," and the Colonel waved his hand gallantly, "that a Clayton can do a Horn a service."
"Thank you, dear friend, and it is just like you to wish to do it, but this I cannot agree to. I have thought of another way since you have been talking to me. Would it—" and she stopped and looked down on the floor, "would it be of any use if I signed a note myself? This house we live in is my own, as you know, and would be an additional security to the bank if anything should happen."
The offer was so unusual that the Colonel caught his breath. He looked at her in astonishment, but her eyes never wavered. He felt instantly that, however lightly he might view the subject, the matter was intensely serious with her. The Colonel half rose to his feet, and with a bow that in Kennedy Square had earned for him the title of "the Chesterfield of his time, sir," placed his hand on his heart.
"My dear Sallie," he said, "not a member of the board could refuse. It would at once remove any obstacle the directors might have."
"Thank you, then we will leave it so, and I will have the papers prepared at once."
"And is this Richard's advice?" the Colonel ventured to ask, slowly regaining his seat. There were some misgivings still lingering in his Chesterfieldian mind as to whether the proudest man he knew, gentle as he was, would not forbid the whole transaction.
"No. He does not know of my purpose, and you will please not tell him. He only knows that I am opposed to allowing the property to be sold, and he has promised me that he will take no steps in the matter without my consent. All I want you to do now is to tell him that the bank has decided to let the matter stand. This obligation hereafter will be between me and the board, and I will pledge myself to carry it out. And now, one thing more before you go, and I ask this because you have seen him grow up and I know you love him. What shall I do with Oliver?"
The Colonel again caught his breath. Gallant gentleman of the old school, as he was, with a profound respect for the other sex, the question startled him. According to his experience and traditions, the fathers generally looked after the welfare of the sons and found them places in life—not the mothers.
"What do you want to do with him?" he asked, quietly.
"I want him to go to work. I am afraid this life here will ruin him."
"Why, I thought he was studying law with Ellicott." The announcement could not have been very surprising to the Colonel. He doubtless knew how much time Oliver spent at Judge Ellicott's office.
"He no doubt THINKS he's studying, dear friend, but he really spends half his time in old Mr. Crocker's studio, who puts the worst possible notions into his head, and the balance of his time he is with your Sue," and she smiled faintly.
"For which you can hardly blame him, dear lady," and the Colonel bent his head graciously.
"No, for she is as sweet as she can be, and you know I love her dearly, but they are both children, and will be for some years. You don't want to support them, do you? and you know Richard can't," and there flashed out from her eyes one of those quizzical glances which the Colonel remembered so well in her girlhood.
The Colonel nodded his head, but he did not commit himself. He had never for a moment imagined that Oliver's love-affair would go as far as that, and, then again, he knew Sue.
"What do you suggest doing with him? I will help, of course, in any way I can," he said, after a pause, during which Mrs. Horn sat watching every expression that crossed his face.
"I don't know. I have not fully made up my mind. I have been greatly disturbed over Oliver. He seems to be passing through one of those dangerous crises which often come to a boy. What do you think of my sending him to New York?"
"THE NORTH, Sallie! Why, you wouldn't send Oliver up North, would you?"
The announcement this time gave the Colonel so genuine a shock that it sent the blood tingling to his cheeks. Really, the idiosyncrasies of the Horn family were beyond his comprehension! Evidently Richard's vagaries had permeated his household.
"I do not like the influence of the North on our young men, my dear Madam." The Colonel spoke now with great seriousness and with some formality, and without any of the Chesterfieldian accompaniments of tone or gesture. "If he were my boy, I should keep him here. He is young and light-hearted, I know, and loves pleasure, but that will all come out of him. Let him stay with Ellicott; he will bring him out all right. There is a brusqueness and a want of refinement among most Northern men that have always grated on me. You can see it any day in Amos Cobb."
As he spoke a slight flush overspread his listener's face. The positiveness of his tone, she thought, carried with it a certain uncomplimentary criticism of her suggestion. The Colonel saw it, and, as if in apology and to prove his case, added, in a gentler tone: "Only this afternoon at the club I heard Cobb speaking in the most outrageous manner about our most treasured institutions. It is not his fault perhaps. It is the fault of his breeding, but it is unbearable all the same. Keep Oliver here. He has a most engaging and lovable nature, is as clean and sweet as a girl, and I haven't a doubt but what he will honor both you and his blood. Take my word for it, and keep him at home. He is young yet, barely twenty-two—there is plenty of time for him." And the Colonel rose from the sofa, lifted Mrs. Horn's fingers to his lips and bowed himself out.
The Colonel only told the truth, as he saw it. In his day and generation men of twenty-two were but boys, and only gray-beards ruled the State and counting-house. The Senators were indeed grave and reverend seigniors, and the merchants, in their old-fashioned dress-coats, looked more like distinguished diplomats than buyers and sellers of produce. In those days, too, the young man with a mustache was thought presuming and dangerous, and the bank who would have selected a cashier under forty would have caused a run on its funds in a week after the youth had been appointed to his position.
After the Colonel's departure Mrs. Horn sat in deep thought. The critical tones of his voice still lingered in her memory. But her judgment had not been shaken nor was her mind satisfied. Oliver still troubled her. The Colonel's advice might be right, but she dared not rely upon it.
The next day she sent for Amos Cobb: Malachi took the message this time, not Oliver. Cobb came on the minute. He was greatly surprised at Mrs. Horn's note, for although his wife was an intimate friend of Mrs. Horn's, and he himself would have been welcome, he was seldom present at any of the functions of the house and could not be considered one of its intimate guests. He did not like music, he said to his wife, when urged to go, and, as he did not play chess or drink Madeira, he preferred to stay at home.
Malachi relieved Amos of his hat, and conducted him into Mrs. Horn's presence with rather a formal bow—quite different from the low salaam with which he had greeted Colonel Clayton. "Dat bobobalish'-nest, Mister Cobb, jes' gone in de parlor," he said to Aunt Hannah when he regained the kitchen. "Looks like he lived on parsimmons, he dat sour."
Mrs. Horn received her visitor cordially, but with a reserve which she had not maintained toward the Colonel, for Cobb had never represented to her anything but a money standard pure and simple. It was only when the Colonel had mentioned his name, and then only because of her urgent need of just such sound practical advice as she knew he could give that she had determined to seek his services—quite as she would have consulted an architect or an attorney.
The Vermonter took his seat on the extreme edge of the sofa, squared his shoulders, pulled up the points of his high collar, touched together the tips of all his fingers, and looked straight at his hostess.
"I am greatly obliged to you for coming," she began, "for I know how busy you are, but I have a question to ask of you which I feel sure you can answer better than anyone I know. It is about my son Oliver. I am going to be perfectly frank with you, and I want you to be equally frank with me." And she summed up Oliver's aims, temptations, and failings with a skill that gained the Vermonter's closest attention. "With all this," she continued, "he is affectionate, loves me dearly, and has never disobeyed me in his life. It is his love of change that worries me—his instability—one thing one moment, and another the next. It seems to me the only way to break this up is to throw him completely on his own resources so that he may realize for once what life really means. Now tell me—" and she looked searchingly into Cobb's face, as if eager to note the effect of her question—"if he were your only son, would you, in view of all I have told you, send him to New York to make his start in life, or would you keep him here?"
The Vermonter's face had begun to lighten as she progressed, and had entirely cleared when he learned why he had been sent for. He had been afraid, when he received her note, that it had been about the mortgage. Cobb was chairman of the Loan Committee at the bank, had personally called attention to Richard's note being overdue, and had himself ordered its payment.
"My two boys are at school in Vermont, Madam," he answered, slowly.
"But Oliver must earn his own living," she said, earnestly. "His father will have nothing to give him."
Cobb made no reply. He was not surprised. Most all of these aristocratic Southerners were on their last legs. He was right about the note, he said to himself—it was just as well to have it paid—and he made a mental memorandum to inquire about it as soon as he reached his office, and have it pressed for settlement at once. Business matters must be kept intact.
"What do you want him to do, Madam?" he asked, looking at her keenly from under his bushy eyebrows.
"Anything to earn his bread," she replied, in a decided tone.
Cobb passed his hand over his face, pinched his chin with his thumb and forefinger, and looked out of the window. The answer pleased him. It pleased him, too, to be consulted by the Horns on a matter of this kind. It pleased him most of all to realize that when these aristocrats who differed with him politically got into a financial hole they had to send for him to help pull them out.
For a moment the Vermonter remained in deep thought. "Here is a Southern woman," he said to himself, "with some common-sense and with a head on her shoulders. If her husband had half her brains I'd let the mortgage stand." Then he turned and faced her squarely, his eyes boring into hers.
"Send him to New York, by all means, Madam, or anywhere else out of here," he said, firmly, but with a kindly tone in his voice. "When you decide, let me know—I will give him a letter to a business friend of mine who lives on the Hudson, a short distance above the city, who may help him. But let me advise you to send him at once. I saw your son yesterday at the club, and he exactly fits your measure, except in one respect. He's got more grit in him than you give him credit for. I looked him over pretty carefully, and if he gets in a tight place you needn't worry about him. He'll pull out, or my name isn't Cobb. And now one thing more—" and he rose stiffly from the sofa and buttoned up his coat—"don't give him any pocket-money. Chuck him out neck and heels into the world and let him shift for himself. That's the way I was treated, and that's the way I got on. Good-day."
Within a day's journey of Kennedy Square lay another wide breathing-space, its winding paths worn smooth by countless hurrying feet.
Over its flat monotony straggled a line of gnarled willows, marking the wanderings of some guileless brook long since swallowed up and lost in the mazes of the great city like many another young life fresh from green fields and sunny hill-sides. This desert of weeds and sun-dried, yellow grass, this kraal for scraggly trees and broken benches, breasted the rush of the great city as a stone breasts a stream, dividing its current—one part swirling around and up Broadway to the hills and the other flowing eastward toward Harlem and the Sound. Around its four sides, fronting the four streets that hemmed it in, ran a massive iron railing, socketed in stone and made man-proof and dog-proof by four great iron gates. These gates were opened at dawn to let the restless in, and closed at night to keep the weary out.
Above these barriers of stone and iron no joyous magnolias lifted their creamy blossoms; no shy climbing roses played hide-and-seek, blushing scarlet when caught. Along its foot-worn paths no drowsy Moses ceased his droning call; no lovers walked forgetful of the world; no staid old gentlemen wandered idly, their noses in their books.
All day long on its rude straight-backed benches and over its thread-bare turf sprawled unkempt women with sick babies from the shanties; squalid, noisy children from the rookeries; beggars in rags, and now and then some hopeless wayfarer—who for the moment had given up his search for work or bread and who rested or slept until the tap of a constable's club brought him to consciousness and his feet.
At night, before the gates were closed—ten o'clock was the hour—there could always be found, under its dim lamps, some tired girl, sitting in the light for better protection while she rested, or some weary laborer on the way home from his long day's work, and always passing to and fro, swinging his staff, bullying the street-rats who were playing tag among the trees, and inspiring a wholesome awe among those hiding in the shadows, lounged some guardian of the peace awaiting the hour when he could drive the inmates to the sidewalk and shut the gates behind them with a bang.
Here on one of these same straight-backed wooden seats one September night—a night when the air was heavy with a blurred haze, through which the lamps peered as in a fog, and the dust lay thick upon the leaves—sat our Oliver.
Outside the square—all about the iron fence, and surging past the big equestrian statue, could be heard the roar and din of the great city—that maelstrom which now seemed ready to engulf him. No sound of merry laughter reached him, only rumbling of countless wheels, the slow thud of never-ending, crowded stages lumbering over the cobbles, the cries of the hucksters selling hot corn, and the ceaseless scrapings of a thousand feet.
He had sat here since the sun had gone down watching the crowds, wondering how they lived and how they had earned their freedom from such cares as were now oppressing him. His heart was heavy. A long-coveted berth, meaning self-support and independence and consequent relief to his mother's heart, had been almost within his grasp. It was not the place he had expected when he left home. It was much more menial and unremunerative. But he had outlived all his bright hopes. He was ready now to take anything he could get to save him from returning to Kennedy Square, or what would be still worse—from asking his mother for a penny more than she had given him. Rather than do this he would sweep the streets.
As he leaned forward on the bench, his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees, his thoughts went back to his father's house. He knew what they were all doing at this hour; he could see the porches crowded with the boys and girls he loved, their bright voices filling the night-air, Sue in the midst of them, her curls about her face. He could see his father in the big chair reading by the lamp, that dear old father who had held his hands so tenderly and spoken with such earnestness the day before he had left Kennedy Square.
"Your mother is right," Richard had said. "I am glad you are going, my son; the men at the North are broader-minded than we are here, and you will soon find your place among them. Great things are ahead of us, my boy. I shall not live to see them, but you will."
He could see his mother, too, sitting by the window, looking out upon the trees. He knew where her thoughts lay. As his mind rested on her pale face his eyes filled with tears. "Dear old mother," he said to himself—"I am not forgetting, dear. I am holding on. But oh, if I had only got the place to-day, how happy you would be to-morrow."
A bitter feeling had risen in his heart, when he had opened the letter which had brought him the news of the loss of this hoped-for situation. "This is making one's way in the world, is it?" he had said to himself with a heavy sigh. Then the calm eyes of his mother had looked into his again, and he had felt the pressure of the soft hand and heard the tones of her voice:
"You may have many discouragements, my son, and will often be ready to faint by the way, but stick to it and you will win."
His bitterness had been but momentary, and he had soon pulled himself together, but his every resource seemed exhausted now. He had counted so on the situation—that of a shipping-clerk in a dry-goods store—promised him because of a letter that he carried from Amos Cobb's friend. But at the last moment the former clerk, who had been laid off because of sickness, had been taken back, and so the weary search for work must begin again.
And yet with everything against him Oliver had no thought of giving up the struggle. Even Amos Cobb would have been proud of him could he have seen the dogged tenacity with which he clung to his purpose—a tenacity due to his buoyant, happy temperament, or to his devotion to his mother's wishes; or (and this is more than probable) to some drops of blood, perhaps, that had reached his own through his mother's veins—the blood of that Major with the blue and buff coat, whose portrait hung in the dining-room at home, and who in the early days had braved the flood at Trenton side by side with the Hero of the Bronze Horse now overlooking the bench on which Oliver sat; or it may be of that other ancestor in the queue whose portrait hung over the mantel of the club and who had served his State with distinction in his day.
Whatever the causes of these several effects, the one dominating power which now controlled him was his veneration for his mother's name and honor. For on the night succeeding Amos Cobb's visit after she had dropped upon her knees and poured out her heart in prayer she had gone into Oliver's bedroom, and shutting the door had told him of the mortgage; of his father's embarrassment, and the danger they suffered of losing the farm—their only hope for their old age—unless success crowned Richard's inventions. With his hand fast in hers she had given him in exact detail all that she had done to ward off this calamity; recounting, word by word, what she had said to the Colonel, lowering her voice almost to a whisper as she spoke of the solemn promise she had made him—involving her own and her husband's honor—and the lengths to which she was prepared to go to keep her obligations to the bank.
Then, her hand still clasping his, the two sitting side by side on his bed, his wondering, startled eyes looking into hers—for this world of anxiety was an unknown world to him—she had by slow stages made him realize how necessary it was that he, their only son, and their sole dependence, should begin at once to earn his daily bread; not only on his own account but on hers and his father's. In her tenderness she had not told him that the real reason was his instability of purpose; fearing to wound his pride, she had put it solely on the ground of his settling down to some work.
"It is the law of nature, my son," she had added. "Everything that lives must WORK to live. You have only to watch the birds out here in the Square to convince you of that. Notice them to-morrow, when you go out. See how busy they are; see how long it takes for any one of them to get a meal. You are old enough now to begin to earn your own bread, and you must begin at once, Ollie. Your father can no longer help you. I had hoped your profession would do this for you, but that is not to be thought of now."
Oliver, at first, had been stunned by it all. He had never before given the practical side of life a single thought. Everything had gone along smoothly from his earliest remembrance. His father's house had been his home and his protection; his room with its little bed and pretty hangings and all its comforts—a room cared for like a girl's—had always been open to him. He had never once asked himself how these things came about, nor why they continued. These revelations of his mother's therefore were like the sudden opening of a door covering a vault over which he had walked unconsciously and which now, for the first time, he saw yawning beneath him.
"Poor daddy," were his first words. "I never knew a thing about his troubles; he seems always so happy and so gentle. I am so sorry—dear daddy—dear dad—" he kept repeating.
And then as she spoke there flashed into his mind the thought of his own hopes. They were shattered now. He knew that the art career was dead for him, and that all his dreams in that direction were over.
He was about to tell her this, but he stopped before the words were formed. He would not add his own burden to her sorrow. No, he would bear it alone. He would tell Sue, but he would not tell his mother. Next there welled up in his heart a desire to help this mother whom he idolized, and this father who represented to him all that was kind and true.
"What can I do? Where can I go, dearie?" he cried with sudden resolve. "Even if I am to work with my hands I am ready to do it, but it must be away from here. I could not do it here at home with everybody looking on; no, not here! not here!"
This victory gained, the mother with infinite tact, little by little, unfolded to the son the things she had planned. Finally with her arms about his neck, smoothing his cheek with her hands she told him of Amos Cobb's advice and of his offer, adding: "He will give you a letter to his friend who lives at Haverstraw near New York, my boy, with whom you can stay until you get the situation you want."
The very impracticability of this scheme did not weigh with her. She did not see how almost hopeless would be the task of finding employment in an unknown city. Nor did the length of time her son might be a burden on a total stranger make any difference in her plans. Her own home had always been open to the friends of her friends, and for any length of time, and her inborn sense of hospitality made it impossible for her to understand any other conditions. Then again she said to herself: "Mr. Cobb is a thoroughly practical man, and a very kind one. His friend will welcome Oliver, or he would not have allowed my son to go." She had repeated, however, no word of the Vermonter's advice "to chuck the boy out neck and heels into the world and let him shift for himself," although the very Spartan quality of the suggestion, in spite of its brusqueness, had greatly pleased her. She could not but recognize that Amos understood. She would have faced the situation herself if she had been in her son's place; she said so to herself. And she hoped, too, that Oliver would face it as bravely when the time came.
As for the temptations that might assail her boy in the great city, she never gave them a thought. Neither the love of drink nor the love of play ran in her own or Richard's veins—not for generations back. "One test of a gentleman, my son," Richard always said, "lies in the way in which he controls his appetites—in the way he regards his meat and drink. Both are foods for the mind as well as for the body, and must be used as such. Gluttons and drunkards should be classed together." No, her boy's heart might lead him astray, but not his appetites, and never his passions. She was as sure of that as she was of his love.
As she talked on, Oliver's mind, yielding to her stronger will as clay does to a sculptor's hand, began to take shape. What at first had looked like a hardship now began to have an attractive side. Perhaps the art career need not be wholly given up. Perhaps, too, there was a better field for him in New York than here—old Mr. Crocker had always told him this. Then, too, there was something of fascination after all, in going out alone like a knight-errant to conquer the world. And in that great Northern city, too, with its rush and whirl and all that it held for him of mystery! How many times had Mr. Crocker talked to him by the hour of its delights. And Ellicott's chair! Yes, he could get rid of that. And Sue? Sue would wait—she had promised him she would; no, there was no doubt about Sue! She would love him all the better if he fought his battle alone. Only the day before she had told him of the wonderful feats of the White Knight, that the new English poet had just written about and that everybody in Kennedy Square was now reading.
Above all there was the delight of another sensation—the sensation of a new move. This really pleased him best. He was apparently listening to his mother when these thoughts took possession of him, for his eyes were still fixed on hers, but he heard only a word now and then. It was his imagination that swayed him now, not his will nor his judgment. He would have his own adventures in the great city and see the world as Mr. Crocker had done, he said to himself.
"Yes, dearie, I'll go," he answered quickly. "Don't talk any more about it. I'll do just as you want me to, and I'll go anywhere you say. But about the money for my expenses? Can father give it to me?" he asked suddenly, a shade of anxiety crossing his face.
"We won't ask your father, Ollie," she said, drawing him closer to her. She knew he would yield to her wishes, and she loved him the better for it, if that were possible. "I have a little money saved which I will give you. You won't be long finding a good place."
"And how often can I come back to you?" he cried, starting up. Until now this phase of the situation had not entered his mind.
"Not often, my boy—certainly not until you can afford it. It is costly travelling. Maybe once or twice a year."
"Oh, then there's no use talking, I can't go. I can't—can't, be away from you that long. That's going to be the hardest part." He had started from his seat and, stood over her, a look of determination on his face.
"Oh, yes, you can, my son, and you will," she replied, as she too rose and stood beside him, stopping the outburst of his weakness with her calm voice, and quieting and soothing him with the soft touch of her hand, caressing his cheek with her fingers as she had so often done when he, a baby, had lain upon her breast.
Then with a smile on her face, she had kissed him good-night, closed the door, and staggering along the corridor steadying herself as she walked, her hand on the walls, had thrown herself upon her bed in an agony of tears, crying out:
"Oh, my boy—my boy! How can I give you up? And I know it is forever!"
And now here he is foot-sore and heart-sore, sitting in Union Square,New York, the roar of the great city in his ears, and here he must situntil the cattle-barge which takes him every night to the house of AmosCobb's friend is ready to start on her voyage up the river.
He sat with his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, not stirring until a jar on the other end of the bench roused him. A negro hod-carrier, splashed with plaster, and wearing a ragged shirt and a crownless straw hat, had taken a seat beside him. The familiarity of the act startled Oliver. No negro wayfarer would have dared so much in his own Square at home.
The man reached forward and drew closer to his own end of the bench a bundle of sawed ends and bits of wood which he had carried across the park on his shoulder.
Oliver watched him for a moment, with a feeling amounting almost to indignation. "Were the poverty and the struggle of a great city to force such familiarities upon him," he wondered. Then something in the negro's face, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand, produced a sudden change of feeling. "Was this man, too, without work?" Oliver asked himself, as he felt the negro's weariness, and realized for the first time, the common heritage of all men.
"Are you tired, Uncle?" he asked.
"Yes, a little mite. I been a-totin' dis kindlin' from way up yander in Twenty-third Street where the circus useter be. Dey's buildin' a big hotel dere now—de Fifth Avenue dey calls it. I'm a-carryin' mortar for de brick-layers an' somehow dese sticks is monst'ous heavy after workin' all day."
"Where do you live?" asked Oliver, his eyes on the kindling-wood.
"Not far from here, sah; little way dis side de Bow'ry. Whar's yo'r home?" And the old man rose to his feet and picked up his bundle.
The question staggered Oliver. He had no home, really none that he could call his own—not now.
"Oh, a long way from here," he answered, thoughtfully, without raising his head, his voice choking.
The old negro gazed at him for a moment, touched his hat respectfully, and walked toward the gate. At the entrance he wheeled about, balanced the bundle of wood on his shoulder and looked back at Oliver, who had resumed his old position, his eyes on the ground. Then he walked away, muttering:
"'Pears like he's one o' my own people calling me uncle. Spec' he ain't been long from his mammy."
Two street-rats now sneaked up toward Oliver, watched him for a moment, and whispered to each other. One threw a stone which grazed Oliver's head, the other put his hand to his mouth and yelled: "Spad, spad," at the top of his voice. Oliver understood the epithet, it meant that he wore clean linen, polished shoes, and perhaps, now and then, a pair of gloves. He had heard the same outcry in his own city, for the slang of the street-rat is Volapuk the world over. But he did not resent the assault. He was too tired to chase any boys, and too despondent to answer their taunts.
A constable, attracted by the cries of the boys, now passed in front of him swinging his long staff. He was about to tap Oliver's knees with one end of it, as a gentle reminder that he had better move on, when something in the young man's face or appearance made him change his mind.
"Hi, sonny," he cried, turning quickly and facing Olivr, "yer can't bum round here after ten, ye know. Keep yer eyes peeled for them gates, d'ye hear?"
If Oliver heard he made no reply. He was in no mood to dispute the officer's right to order him about. The gates were not the only openings shut in his face, he thought to himself; everything seemed closed against him in this great city. It was not so at home on Kennedy Square. Its fence, was a shackly, moss-covered, sagging old fence, intertwined with honeysuckles, full of holes and minus many a paling; where he could have found a dozen places to crawl through. He had done so only a few weeks before with Sue in a mad frolic across the Square. Besides, why should the constable speak to him at all? He knew all about the hour of closing the New York gates without the policeman reminding him of it. Had he not sat here every night waiting for that cattle-boat? He hated the place cordially, yet it was the only spot in that great city to which he could come and not be molested while he waited for the barges. He always selected this particular bench because it was nearest the gate that led to the bronze horse. He loved to look at its noble contour silhouetted against the sky or illumined by the street-lamps, and was seldom too tired to be inspired by it. He had never seen any work in sculpture to be compared to it, and for the first few days after his arrival, he was never content to end the day's tramping until he stood beneath it, following its outlines, his heart swelling with pride at the thought that one of his own nationality and not a European had created it. He wished that his father, who believed so in the talent of his countrymen, could see it.
Suddenly, while he was still resenting the familiarity of the constable, his ears were assailed by the cry of a dog in pain; some street-rat had kicked him.
Instantly Oliver was on his feet. A small spaniel was running toward him, followed by half a dozen boys who were pelting him with stones.
Oliver sprang forward as the dog crouched at his feet; caught him up in his arms and started for the rats, who dodged behind the tree-trunks, calling "Spad, spad," as they ran. Then came the voice of the same constable.
"Hi, yer can't bring that dog in here."
"He's not my dog, somebody has hurt him," said Oliver in an indifferent tone, examining carefully the dog's legs to see if any bones were broken.
"If that ain't your dog what yer doin' with him? See here, I been a-watchin' ye. Yer got ter move on or I'll run ye in. D'ye moind?"
Oliver's eyes flashed. In all his life no man had ever doubted his word, nor had anyone ever spoken to him in such terms.
"You can do as you please, but I will take care of this dog, no matter what happens. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to see him hurt, and not want to protect him. You're a pretty kind of an officer."
A crowd began to gather.
Oliver was standing with the dog under one arm, holding the little fellow close to his breast, the other bent with fist tight shut as if to defend himself.
"I am, am I? yer moon-faced spad! I'll show ye," and he sprang towardOliver.
"Here now, Tim Murphy," came a sharp voice, "kape yer hands off the young gintleman. He ain't a-doin' nothin', and he ain't done nothin'. Thim divils hit the dog, I seen 'em myself."
The officer turned quickly and faced a big, broad-shouldered Irish woman, bare-headed, her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, every line in her kindly face replete with indignation.
"Don't put yer hands on him, or I'll go to the lock-up an' tellMcManus."
"Oh, it's you, is it, Mrs. Mulligan?" said the officer, in a conciliatory tone.
"Yes, it's me. The young gintleman's right. It's the b'ys ye oughter club into shape, not be foolin' yer time over the dog."
"Well, ye know it's agin the rules to let dogs inside the gates," he retorted as he continued his stroll along the walk, swinging his club as he went, puffing out his chest and cheeks with his old air as he moved toward the gate.
"Yes, an' so it's agin the rules," she called after him, "to have them rapscallions yellin' like mad an' howlin' bloody murder when a body comes up here to git a breath o' air."
"Is the dog hurt, sir?" and she stepped close to Oliver and laid her big hand on the dog's head, as it lay nestling close to Oliver's side.
"No, I don't think so—he would have been if I had not got him."
The dog, under the caress, raised his head, and a slight movement of his tail expressed his pleasure. Then his ears shot forward. A young man about Oliver's own age was rapidly walking up the path, with a quick, springy step, whistling as he came. The dog, with a sudden movement, squirmed himself from under Oliver's arm and sprang toward him.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Fred, is it?" broke out the woman, "and it's Miss Margaret's dog, too. Of course it's her dog, an' I was that dumb I didn't know it. But it's not me ye can thank for savin' its skin—it's the young gintleman here. Them divils would have killed it but for him."
"Is the dog yours, sir?" asked Oliver, raising his hat with that peculiar manner of his which always won him friends at first sight.
"No, I wish it were. It's Miss Margaret Grant's dog—one of our students. I am taking care of it while she is away. The little rascal ran out and got into the Square before I knew it. I live right across the street—you can see my house from here. Miss Grant will be ever so much obliged to you for protecting him."
"Oh, don't mention it. I got hold of him just in time, or these ruffians would have hurt him. I think the old lady here, however, is most to be thanked. We might both have been locked up," he added, smiling, "if she had not interfered. You know her, it seems."
"Yes, she's Mother Mulligan, as we call her. She's janitress of theAcademy of Design, where I draw at night. My name's Fred Stone. Comeover to where I live—it's only a step," and he looked straight intoOliver's face, his big blue eyes never wavering.
"Well, I will if you don't think it's too late," and the two young fellows, with a wave of their hands to the old woman, left the Square, the dog bounding before them.
Within the hour—in less time indeed, for the friendly light in the eyes of his new-found friend had shone straight into our boy's soul, warming and cheering him to his finger-tips, opening his heart, and bringing out all his secrets—Oliver had told Fred the story of his fruitless tramps for work; of his mother's hopes and fears; of his own ambitions and his aims. And Fred, his own heart wide open, had told Oliver with equal frankness the story of his own struggles; of his leaving his father's farm in the western part of the State, and of his giving up everything to come to New York to study art.
It was the old, old story of two chance acquaintances made friends by reason of the common ground of struggle and privation on which they stood; comrades fighting side by side in the same trenches for the same end, and both dreaming of the morrow which would always bring victory and never death. A story told without reserve, for the disappointments of life had not yet dulled their enthusiasm, nor had the caution acquired by its many bitter experiences yet checked the free flow of their confidences.
To Oliver, in his present despondent mood, the hand held out to him was more than the hand of a comrade. It was the hand of a strong swimmer thrust into the sea to save a drowning man. There were others then besides himself, he thought, as he grasped it, who were making this fight for bread and glory; there was something else in the great city besides cruelty and misery, money-getting and money-spending—something of unselfishness, sympathy and love.
The two sat on the steps of Fred's boarding-house—that house where Oliver was to spend so many happy days of his after-life—until there was only time enough to catch the barge. Reluctantly he bade his new-found comrade good-by and, waving his hand, turned the corner in the direction of the dock.
The edge of Oliver's cloud had at last caught the light!
Not only had the sunshine of a new friendship illumined the edge of Oliver's clouds, but before the week was out a big breeze laden with success had swept them so far out to sea, that none but the clearest of skies radiant with hope now arched above his happy face.
A paste-board sign had wrought this miracle.
One day he had been tramping the lower parts of the city, down among the docks, near Coenties Slip, looking up the people who on former visits had said: "Some other time, perhaps," or "If we should have room for another man we will be glad to remember you," or "We know Mr. Cobb, and shall be pleased," etc., etc., when he chanced to espy a strange sign tacked outside a warehouse door, a sign which bore the unheard-of-announcement—unheard of to Oliver, especially the last word, "Shipping Clerk WANTED."
No one, for weeks, had WANTED anything that Oliver could furnish. Strangely enough too, as he afterward discovered, the bullet-headed Dutch porter had driven the last tack into the clean, white, welcome face of the sign only five minutes before Oliver stopped in front of it. Still more out of the common, and still more incomprehensible, was the reply made to him by the head salesman, whom he found just inside the door—a wiry, restless little man with two keen black eyes, and a perfectly bald head.
"Yes, if you can mark boxes decently; can show any references; don't want too much pay, and can come NOW. We're short of a boy, and it's our busy season."
Oh! blessed be Mr. Crocker, thought Oliver, as he picked up a marking-brush, stirred it round and round in the tin pot filled with lamp-black and turpentine, and to his own and the clerk's delight, painted, on a clean board, rapidly and clearly, and in new letters too—new to the clerk—the full address of the bald-headed man's employers:
MORTON, SLADE & CO., 121 PEARL STREET, NEW YORK.
More amazing still were the announcements made by the same bald-headed man after Oliver had shown him Amos Cobb's recommendations: Oliver was to come to work in the morning, the situation to be permanent provided Cobb confirmed by letter the good wishes he had previously expressed, and provided Mr. Morton, the senior partner, approved of the bald-head's action; of which the animated billiard-ball said there was not the slightest doubt as he, the ball, had charge of the shipping department, and was responsible for its efficiency.
All of these astounding, incomprehensible and amazing occurrences Oliver had written to his mother, ending his letter by declaring in his enthusiasm that it was his art, after all, which had pulled him through, and that but for his readiness with the brush, he would still be a tramp, instead of "rolling in luxury on the huge sum of eight dollars a week, with every probability of becoming a partner in the house, and later on a millionnaire." To which the dear lady had replied, that she was delighted to know he had pleased his employers, but that what had pleased her most was his never having lost heart while trying to win his first fight, adding: "The second victory will come more easily, my darling boy, and so will each one hereafter." Poor lady, she never knew how sore that boy's feet had been, nor how many times he had gone with half a meal or none at all, for fear of depleting too much the small store she had given him when he left home.
With his success still upon him, he had sallied forth to call upon young Fred Stone who had grasped his hand so warmly the night he had rescued the dog from the street-boys, and whose sympathy had gone out to him so freely. He had written him of his good fortune, and Fred had replied, begging him to call upon him, and had appointed this same Friday night as the night of all others when he could entertain him best.
But Oliver is not the same boy who said good-by to Fred that moonlight night the week before. His eyes are brighter; his face is a-glow with ill-concealed pleasure. Even his step shows the old-time spring and lightness of the days at home—on his toes part of the time, as if restraining an almost uncontrollable impulse to stop and throw one or two hand-springs just to relieve the pressure on his nerves.
When he reached the bench in the Square where he had sat so many nights with his head in his hands, one of those quick outbursts of enthusiasm took possession of him, the kind that sets young hearts singing with joy when some sudden shift of hope's kaleidoscope opens a wide horizon brilliant with the light of future success. With an exclamation of boyish glee he plumped himself down upon the hard planks of the bench, and jumped up again, pirouetting on his toe and slanting his hat over one eye as if in a spirit of sheer bravado against fate. Then he sauntered out of the iron gate to Fred's house.
Even as he waited on the stone steps of Miss Teeturn's boarding-house for the dowdy servant-girl's return—such dirty, unkempt steps as they were, and such a dingy door-plate, spotted with rain and dust, not like Malachi's, he thought—he could hardly restrain himself from beating Juba with his foot, a plantation trick Malachi had taught him, keeping time the while with the palms of his hands on his shapely legs.
Meanwhile another young enthusiast is coming downstairs three steps at a time, this one bare-headed, all out of breath, and without a coat, who pours out his heart to the first Juba-beating enthusiast as the two climb the stairs together to the second enthusiast's room on the very top floor. He tells him of his delight at seeing him again and of the lot of fellows waiting to welcome him under the skylight; and of what a jolly lot the "Skylarkers" really are; and of Mr. Slade, Oliver's employer, whom Fred knows and who comes from Fred's own town; and of how much Mr. Slade likes a certain new clerk, one Oliver Horn, of Kennedy Square, he having said so the night before, this same Horn being the precise individual whose arm at that very moment was locked in Fred's own and which was now getting an extra squeeze merely for the purposes of identification.
All of this Fred poured into Oliver's willing ear without stopping to take breath, as they mounted the four long flights of stairs that led to the top floor, where, under the roof, there lived a group of Bohemians as unique in their personalities as could be found the great city over.
When the two pairs of feet had at last reached the last flight of steps under the flat roof of the house, the "Skylarkers" were singing "Old Dog Tray" at the top of their voices, to the accompaniment of a piano, and of some other instruments, the character of which our young hero failed to recognize, although the strains had grown louder and louder as the young men mounted the stairs.
As Oliver stood in the open doorway and looked in through the haze of tobacco-smoke upon the group, he instantly became conscious that a new world had opened before him; a world, as he had always pictured it, full of mystery and charm, peopled by a race as fascinating to him as any Mr. Crocker had ever described, and as new and strange as if its members had been the denizens of another planet.
The interior was not a room, but a square low-ceiled hall into which opened some six or more small bedrooms, slept in, whenever sleep was possible, by an equal number of Miss Teetum's boarders. The construction and appointments of this open garret, with two exceptions, were similar to those of all other garrets of its class: it had walls and ceiling, once whitewashed, and now discolored by roof-leaks from a weather-beaten skylight; its floor was bare of carpet, and its well-worn woodwork was stained with time and use. Chairs, however, were scarce, most of the boarders and their guests being seated on the floor.
The two exceptions, already noted, were some crisp, telling sketches, big and little, in color and black-and-white, the work of the artist members of this coterie, which covered every square inch of the leak-stained surface of ceiling and wall, and the yellow-keyed, battered piano which occupied the centre of the open space and which stood immediately under two flaring gas-jets. At the moment of Fred's and Oliver's arrival the top of this instrument was ornamented by two musically inclined gentlemen, one seated cross-legged like a Turk, voicing the misfortunes of Dog Tray, the other, with his legs resting on a chair, beating time to the melody with a cane. This cane, at short intervals, he brought down upon the shoulders of any ambitious member who attempted to usurp his place. The chief object of the gathering, so far as Oliver's hasty glance could determine, was undoubtedly the making of as much noise as possible.
While the young men stood looking into the room waiting for the song to cease prior to Oliver's entry and introduction, Fred whispered hurriedly into his guest's ear some of the names, occupations, and characteristics of the group before him.
The cross-legged man with the long neck, drooping mustache, and ropy black hair, was none other than Bowdoin, the artist—the only American who had taken a medal at Munich for landscape, but who was now painting portraits and starving slowly in consequence. He mounted to this eyry every Friday night, so as to be reminded of the good old days at Schwartz's. The short, big-mustached, bald-headed man swinging the cane, was Bianchi—Julius Bianchi—known to the Skylarkers as "The Pole," and to the world at large as an accomplished lithographer and maker of mezzotints. Bianchi was a piece of the early artistic driftwood cast upon our shores—an artist every inch of him—drawing from life, and handling the crayon like a master.
The pale-faced young fellow at the piano, with bulging watch-crystal eye-glasses and hair tucked behind his ears, was the well-known, all-round musician, Wenby Simmons—otherwise known as "Pussy Me-ow"—a name associated in some way with the strings of his violin. This virtuoso played in the orchestra at the Winter Garden, and occupied the bedroom next to Fred's.
The clean-shaven, well-groomed young Englishman standing behind Simmons and holding a coal-scuttle half full of coal which he shook with deafening jangle to help swell the chorus, was "My Lord Cockburn" so called—an exchange clerk in a banking-house. He occupied the room opposite Fred's.
With the ending of the chorus Fred Stone stepped into the open space with his arm through that of his guest, and the noise was hushed long enough for the entire party to welcome the young Southerner—a welcome which kindled into a glow of enthusiasm when they caught the look of frank undisguised pleasure which lighted his face, and noticed the unaffected bow with which he entered the room, shaking hands with each one as Fred introduced him—and all with that warm, hearty, simple, courteous manner peculiar to his people.
The slight ceremony over—almost every Friday night some new guest was welcomed—Fred seated himself on the floor with his back to the whitewashed wall, although two chairs were at once offered them, and made room for Oliver, who settled down beside him.
As they sat leaning back, Oliver's eyes wandering over the room drinking in the strange, fascinating scene before him, as bewildering as it was unexpected, Fred—now that they were closer to the scene of action, again whispered or shouted, as the suddenly revived noise permitted, into Oliver's alert and delighted ears, such additional facts concerning the other members present as he thought would interest his guest.
The fat man behind the piano astride of a chair, a pipe in his mouth and a black velvet skull-cap on his head, was Tom Waller, the sheep-painter-Thomas Brandon Waller, he signed it—known as the Walrus. He, too, was a boarder and a delightful fellow, although an habitual grumbler. His highest ambition was to affix an N. A. at the end of his name, but he had failed of election by thirty votes out of forty cast. That exasperating event he had duly celebrated at Pfaff's in various continued libations covering a week, and had accordingly, on many proper and improper occasions, renewed and recelebrated the event, breathing out meanwhile, between his pewter mugs, scathing anathemas against the "idiots" who had defeated him out of his just rights, and who were stupid enough to believe in the school of Verboeckhoeven. Slick and shiny Verboeckhoeven, "the mechanic," he would call him, with his fists closed tight, who painted the hair on every one of his sheep as if it were curled by a pair of barber's tongs—not dirty and woolly and full of suggestions as, of course, he—the great Waller, alone of all living animal-painters—depicted it. All of which, to Waller's credit, it must be parenthetically stated, these same "idiots" learned to recognize in after years as true, when that distinguished animal-painter took a medal at the Salon for the same picture which the Jury of N. A.'s had rejected at their Spring Exhibition.
The irreproachable, immaculate young person, with eyes half-closed, lying back in the arm-chair—one which he had brought from his own room—was "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins. He was the only member who dressed every day for dinner, whether he was going out afterward or not—spike-tailed coat, white tie and all. Tomlins not only knew intimately a lady of high degree who owned a box at the Academy of Music, in Fourteenth Street, and who invited him to sit in it at least once a season, but he had besides a large visiting acquaintance among the people of quality living on Irving Place. A very agreeable and kindly little man was "Ruffle-shirt" Tomlins—so Fred said—the sort of a little man whose philosophy of life was based on the possibility of catching more innocent, unwary flies with honey than he could with vinegar, and who, in consequence, always said nice things about everybody—sometimes in a loud tone enough for everybody to hear. This last statement of Fred's Tomlins confirmed ten minutes later by remarking, in a stage whisper to Waller:
"Did you see how that young Mr. Horn entered the room? Nobody like these high-bred Southerners, my boy. Quite the air of a man of the world—hasn't he?" To all of which the distinguished sheep-painter made no other reply than a slight nod of the head, as he blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling—Tomlins's immaculate appearance being a constant offence to the untidy painter.
The member with the stentorian voice, who was roaring out his opinions to Cockburn, Fred continued, was "Fog-horn" Cranch, the auctioneer. His room was next to Waller's. His weaknesses were gay-colored waistcoats and astounding cravats. He varied these portions of his dress according to wind, weather, and sales of the day—selecting blue for sunshiny mornings, black for rainy ones, green for pictures, red for household furniture, white for real estate, etc. Into these color-schemes he stuck a variety of scarf-pins—none very valuable or rare, but each one distinct—a miniature ivory skull, for instance, with little garnets for eyes, or tiny onyx dice with sixes on all sides.